Festival Closing Concert to focus on Wexford music from the archives
Mark Redmond (uileann pipes) and Patrick Fitzpatrick (clarinet, traditional flute, whistles) perform an afternoon concert (3pm) at St Iberius Church, Wexford on Sunday, March 3. The duo, noth Gorey men, were a big hit at last January’s TradFest in Dublin with their show at Dublin City Hall selling out.
The music of the their native county features strongly in their repertoire with many of the melodies which Mark sourced from old manuscripts having Wexford titles. Indeed but for him these tunes would most likely still be languishing in a dusty archive. Their regular set list includes beauties such as “the reel 'The Pretty Girls of Gorey' (from the Cannon Goodman collection of the mid nineteenth century), 'Redmond's Frolics' (from the O'Neill collection of the early Twentieth Century), 'The Wexford Lasses' (from the Rowsome collection) and 'Trip the Hills to Gorey' a reel taken from a manuscript of local fiddler Tomás Keegan”.
Mark has performed as soloist with the RTE Concert Orchestra; RTE National Symphony Orchestra (including performances for the state visit of Queen Elisabeth II to Ireland, 2011); Camerata Ireland’s musical commemoration of the 1916 Centenary, under the direction of pianist Barry Douglas, for the premiere of Ólagan at the Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts, Washington; The Savannah Philharmonic, Georgia, USA; and the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne, Rennes, France. At the Eucharistic Congress in 2012, Mark played solo during the closing ceremony at Croke Park in front of over 80,000 people. Last year he performed before an even larger audience at Pope Francis’s mass in Phoenix Park. He regularly collaborates with Riverdance, Celtic Woman, Celtic Legends, The Irish Memory Orchestra, The Irish Harp Orchestra, and as part of the Daoirí Farrell trio. In recent years Mark has performed live with Glen Hansard, Declan O’Rourke, Jack L, and Westlife.
Mark received a First Class Honours Degree from the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in 2011 and completed an Honours Masters in Music there in 2012.
Pat Fitzpatrick’s first taste of public performing was as a youngster in Gorey with the local pipe band. His love of traditional Irish music was there from the start. He joined the Army School of Music at age 18 and spent 10 years playing solo clarinet in the No 1 Army Band. In 1990 he joined, and is still a member of, the band of An Garda Siochána. Pat has featured as a soloist on many high profile concerts and recordings such as He has featured as a soloist on many high profile recordings such as Carraig Chuaire, Echoes of Éireann, Aloys Fleischmann Orchestral Works and Going Home by Phil Coulter. As well as his performorances with The Band of An Garda Siochana and the Army Band he has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.
Pat is currently studying a Masters in traditional performance at DIT.
